[blam]

[JimSEA]

"If there's any mystery surrounding them, it's no doubt partly a product of Western mythology around anything Tibetan and the fact that until recently the Chinese forbade access to the region," says Alex Gardner, a Buddhism specialist at the University of Michigan. "I don’t see how they could be called 'unknown' when they are visible for miles, and the region is crisscrossed with trading routes and now automobile roads."

I am sure this guy irritates you as much as he does me. Arrogant academic twit that he is. Dismissive "experts" like this extinguish the talent and ability of their grad students. Rant over

What is your take on the towers. The shape throws me. The Mongols sweeping through this area some 400 years after the towers were apparently built could account for the lack of any accounts or records.

[Fedora]

I guess the time frame for that older tower in Kongpo would be 900-1100 AD--contemporary with the Viking-Muslim trade in the Baltic and Eastern Europe ('til about 1050, says my Anchor Atlas of World History, V. 1, 131: "Because [the Vikings] controlled the Rus. trade-lines (the Dnieper to Byzantium, the Volga to the Arab world), the emphasis of world trade shifted to Sweden (Birka); after 900 it shifted to Haithabu. . .More important than the trade with Greece was that with the Arabs (silver from Western Turkestan and Afghanistan: find of 40,000 Arab silver coins on Gotland). . .Viking trade ceased c. 1050."), with the Muslim penetration of India, and with the Tang-Sung period in China.

[eeaaggllee11]

ping!